Bittersweet
by manerva
Summary: Janeway gets into a self-destructive relationship. ~* It's bittersweet; she has what she wanted, but it's still not enough. *~


=/\= Paramount owns everything except the carpet burns, and the bruises, they're mine

=/\= Paramount owns everything except the carpet burns, and the bruises, they're mine. But they can have them if they want!

Title: Bittersweet.

Author: manerva

Code: J/P

Rating: NC-17

Feedback: [captain_manerva_tpel@yahoo.com][1]

Home Page: http://www.crosswinds.net/~thelongwayhome/

Summary: Janeway and Paris have sex.

Author's Note: Woah, could this be any more of a Mary Sue? Guess who Paris is, and I'll give you a Cola flavored lollipop! Aw, what the Hell, I'll give ya one anyway, because I really don't like them! ^_^

__

It's better this way, I say, having seen this Hell before…

She doesn't really know what attracted her to him in the first place. Maybe it was because he looked after her, always seemed to care. Maybe it was because he was always such a good friend. Maybe it was one of those undefinable things that you never really know. 

It scared her, when she realized what she felt. 

She'd believed that she was incapable of feeling anymore, let alone anything like this.

****

She remembers the night they stayed up late, talking in his quarters. Talking about anything and everything. All the little things she had no one to tell. 

The random things that hit her at 0300 hours, keeping her up all night. The decisions she's regretted, the total number of crew members that have died under her command, all the sleepless nights when she's stared out of her cabin window for hours, wondering if she's just going to die all alone out here.

He tells her about his past, the things that he's seen and done that will stay with him forever, the failed relationships that still haunt him, how privileged he feels to have this second chance to show the world what he could be, out here on _Voyager_.

She remembers holding on to him in the dark, confused as hell, wondering just what's going to happen next. She falls asleep like that.

****

Nights later, she is back in his quarters, in his bed.

It is meaningless sex, just something to fill the void. Both of them needing the touch of another, something to prove that they're not alone. 

In the morning she leaves, returning to her own quarters, to examine her body. 

She is covered in bruises, although he was not rough with her. He doesn't realize just how weak, how fragile she is.

She pushes softly on her ribs; they are painfully visible through her pale, paper-thin skin. They ache. 

She shrugs it off, just another place that she is injured. There are so many these days.

She wants him to treat her differently now. She doesn't want to be just a friend anymore, though that is all she is to him.

No strings attached, he said.

She agreed, because she knew that this was the best she was going to get from him, this was as far as he would emotionally commit himself.

She agreed, even though she knew she wouldn't be able to keep this pact. 

****

He never kisses her, he never holds her afterwards. 

And this hurts her more than the physical blows she's received from so many others.

****

She finds herself in his bed more often now, and as much as she hates herself for it, she craves his touch.

As sick as it is, she wants to be covered in bruises caused by their fucking. Because they're the only real things that he gives her.

She never sees it as making love. She can't, that term implies that there's some kind of emotion involved. There's not supposed to be, although she can't help what she feels.

What she feels for him; this is the one secret she can't tell him.

She knows that to him, it's just sex. Pure and simple, if sex can ever be simple. 

If he knew what she was feeling, he'd stop it all, then and there.

It can't end. Not yet, she refuses to let it, as much as it hurts her to let it go on.

****

It's bittersweet; she has what she wanted, but it's still not enough.

****

He tells her about another, one night as she lay sated in his bed. 

About how he feels for her, how he thinks of her every waking moment, how he sees her as perfection itself.

She tries to be happy for him. She tells herself that she is happy for him. She tells him that she is happy for him.

She doesn't tell him that that's how she thinks of him. She doesn't tell him that she wants to rip him apart. She doesn't tell him how she wants to hate him, but can't. She loves him too much to be able to hate him.

She leaves in the morning, as usual. 

Back in her quarters, she takes a shower, the water temperature so high it's scalding her skin. 

She is trying to burn any trace of him off her. Trying to believe he isn't using her.

She notices a blade from a razor, balancing precariously on the side of the tub. Grabbing it, she proceeds to slash it across her skin, leaving fine red lines in its wake.

She doesn't know why the pain feels so good. At least she is controlling it, causing it herself, instead of her being at the mercy of others.

The pure white tiles beneath her feet become stained red, blood and water swirling around and around in intricate patterns, before being washed away altogether.

She gets out and dresses, the conforming lines of a Starfleet uniform covering everything.

She knows that when she is in his bed he will never ask a thing.

****

They're on an away mission. 

The planet was supposedly uninhabited, that's what the sensors told them. That's what Neelix told them.

There was no way of knowing it was an ambush.

He's hurt badly in the struggle. He's torn apart, physically and emotionally.

She blames herself.

__

If only I was there. She thinks. _If only I had known what was really waiting for us. If only I hadn't been so busy defending myself._

There are too many 'if only's'.

She blames herself for everything that happens to her crew, but this is different. This is… personal.

He doesn't blame her. He's in sickbay for two weeks. He still doesn't blame her. He'll have the emotional scars for life. He doesn't blame her.

She wants to know why he doesn't hate her. **Why** exactly, it's not her fault.

****

She's constantly by his side, offering comfort. He doesn't seek it from her; he seeks it from another. 

She's hurt by this, but doesn't let it show.

His other turns him away.

She begins to hate her too.

****

She falls into a depression, deeper than she's ever felt before.

She's trying to use alcohol to dissolve the bonds between them.

She's not sure if it works. 

She falls into a pattern of substance abuse; no one even suspects a thing. Not even him.

She continues her life perfectly, or so it seems on the outside.

As no one seems to notice, she slowly begins to let her guards down, without even realizing it.

She buys a small supply of hallucinogenic crystals at an alien outpost. 

He questions her about it, but she denies all knowledge.

She doesn't know how he found out. Her mind races through thousand possibilities, before finally settling on one outcome, he must be monitoring her somehow.

She tears off her clothes, ripping them to shreds; if there's a locating beacon in them somewhere she's going to find it. 

She's determined, she tells herself.

She's self-destructive. She's paranoid, a little voice in the back of her mind whispers. 

She's afraid that it's right.

****

Now when she wakes up in his bed, she can never remember the night before.

She closes her eyes, holding back tears.

She tells herself it's better this way. 

****

She decides she's not going to sleep with him anymore. He asks too many questions, he suspects too much.

Some mornings she still finds herself in his bed, but she tells her self that nothing's happened. 

She never believes it.

She runs from bed to bed, holodeck to holodeck, trying to find someone, anyone who feels like he did. Who can hurt her like he has.

Her mind is wasted, and one night, with a sudden realization of horror, she knows that her body is wasting away aswell.

She's never sure anymore whether the bodies pressing into her are hologram or flesh and blood. 

It doesn't really matter.

****

The crew is talking about her behind her back, they all think she doesn't know the things they say.

She knows, but just doesn't care. She knows it's all true anyway.

He dismisses them, tells the crew that they're not true, tells them the so-called 'real' story, often making it up on the spur of the moment. 

He decides to confront her.

She doesn't recognize him, until he touches her.

She knows him only by his hands, what they feel like on her skin. No one else feels the same.

He looks into her eyes, but he can't see anything wrong in them.

He questions her.

She pushes him off her.

He pulls her to her feet.

She walks away.

****

She's lying on her bedroom floor when he enters. She's too weak, too tired to pull herself up onto her bed.

He walks over to her, calling her name.

Her eyes flutter open, and focus on him. He's leaning over her, pressing a hypo-spray to her neck.

She hears the sharp his emanating from it, as its contents are released into her body. Everything is suddenly sharp and clear, the world is in focus.

She demands to know what he just did. He tells her she shouldn't be angry, it's for her own good. She doesn't believe him.

They argue. 

She tells him to leave, he refuses.

She tries to physically push him out. She hits him, yells at him to get out.

He slaps her. 

And she knows she will never go back to his bed.

He slaps her. 

And as she falls, crying to the floor, she knows it's all over.

** Fin**

   [1]: mailto:captain_manerva_tpel@yahoo.com



End file.
